A farm near Manchester where you can go on hikes with alpacas is planning to add glamping pods to the experience.
Lancashire’s Lowlands Farm hopes to introduce overnight accommodation options to its visits and farm experiences.
At present, families can hang out with the farm’s adorable alpacas on a relaxing walk around the beautiful countryside.
You’re paired with your own animal and take it for a walk over flat grassland – picture taking a dog for a walk but then make it loads bigger and covered in wool.
After the walk, staff at the family-run farm will introduce you to the other animals who live here, including Swiss Valas sheep Harrison and Hendricks, Narla the donkey, and all the horses.
There’s also chickens, ponies, rabbits, guinea pigs and even farm cats to say hello to.
And younger visitors can be stunned by their rarest farm animal – the unicorn. At their unicorn experiences, you can brush the mythical creature’s beautiful colourful manes, paint their hooves, and take them on a treasure hunt around an enchanted paddock.
Lowlands Farm started with only three alpacas back in 2010, but they’ve since grown their herd by dozens and created a range of experiences for brilliant family days out.
The farm in Westby-with-Plumptons has built a solid reputation for animal therapy visits too, aiming to help people with mild to moderate mental health issues, special needs, learning disabilities, or illness.
They now want to build five timber-clad glamping pods, which have artificial grass roofs to fit in with the rural setting.
In their planning application, Lowlands Farm say: “This small family enterprise has a great sense of commitment at their heart and hence has built strong customer relationships. Their dedication and deep genuine understanding of the various users’ needs has resulted in a natural and steady growth of the business. Parents and leads of special needs groups comment that the hosts’ genuine understanding of their children’s needs/behavioural habits allows them to relax more, which in turn calms the children.
Lowlands Farm is home to a herd of alpacas as well as other farm animals. Credit: Unsplash
“The expansion in uptake of the current activities/experiences has led to enquiries from attendees as to whether overnight stays could be offered. These enquiries have come from parents and leaders, of both the special needs and mainstream groups and families. Many have suggested that extending their stay on site overnight would be extremely beneficial.
“The parents and leaders of the special needs groups advise that such a facility would further enhance the current benefits of the visits, especially the children with autism; the site is small, quiet and calming.
“The parents of mainstream children also state that they would be interested in staying on the site as part of an extension of the package farm experience package currently offered. They believe it would help them encourage their children away from electronic devices and immerse themselves in the natural environment; such benefits have already been noted with the annual ‘family camp’.”
If approved, Lowlands Farm will be able to offer overnight glamping stays in the warmer six months of the year.
In the meantime, you can book an alpaca walk or another experience here.
Aitch is playing a huge hometown set at The Warehouse Project
Danny Jones
Aitch has booked another massive hometown slot as the Moston-born rapper will be playing none other than the home of clubbing here in Manchester: The Warehouse Project.
Joining the WHP25 programme, which is already stacked right up until New Year’s Eve, the 25-year-old is the latest rapper to take on the famous club venue, following the likes of Little Simz and Loyle Carner, who played the event series back in October.
Aitch‘s new album, 4 – which denotes the number of studio LPs he’s made to date and acts as a nod to the M4 postcode – was released on June 20 and has already proved popular with fans.
Having just played Parklife as well as a secret set at Glastonbury this year, he’s already performed most of his biggest slots for the year, but the ever-rising local rapper thought he’d given Manchester another big gig and one more chance to see him live in 2025.
As an increasingly popular main event act across the UK, a headline show at Warehouse Project is nothing short of a massive deal for any artist, let alone a Manc.
The date itself will see him see him performing songs from the new record, which is his second to hit the top 10, as well as a selection of multiple platinum-selling hits.
Sharing details of early access tickets on Instagram stories shortly after the announcement, the UK hip-hop and grime star reminded fans: “This is the only chance to see me shut this sh*t down this year!!!”
It’s actually his only major domestic show in full stop, so if you’re a die-hard fan of Harrison Armstrong and his music, you really don’t want to miss this one.
He’s not the only big name coming to Mayfield this season either.
WHP25 /// FISHER – TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Don’t miss out on what’s set to be an unmissable night – packed with infectious energy from beginning to end – as he takes over Depot Mayfield alongside a lineup coming very soon.
Featured Images — Jahnay Tennai (supplied)/Aitch (via TikTok)
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‘Dazzling’ Victorian silver sculpture goes on public display in Greater Manchester after fears it was lost
Emily Sergeant
A long-lost masterpiece of Victorian silverwork has been saved and is now on display to the public in Greater Manchester.
Anyone taking a trip over to the National Trust’s historic Dunham Massey property, on the border of Greater Manchester into Cheshire, this summer will get to see the ‘dazzling’ sculpture called Stags in Bradgate Park – which was commissioned by a former owner in a defiant gesture to the society that shunned him.
The dramatic sculpture of two rutting Red Deer stags, commissioned in 1855 by George Harry Grey, 7th Earl of Stamford, was said to be an ‘act of love and rebellion’.
It also serves as a symbol of ‘locking horns’ with the society that ostracised him over his marriage to a woman considered ‘beneath him’.
“This isn’t just silver – it’s a story,” says James Rothwell, who is the National Trust‘s curator for decorative arts.
“A story of a man who fell in love with a woman that society deemed unworthy. When the Earl married Catherine Cox, whose colourful past was said to have included performing in a circus, Victorian high society was scandalised. Even Queen Victoria shunned the couple at the opera and local gentry at the horse races in Cheshire turned their backs on them.”
Modelled by Alfred Brown and crafted by royal goldsmiths Hunt & Roskell, Stags in Bradgate Park is a meticulously-detailed depiction of nature, and was considered a ‘sensation’ in its day.
Showing the rutting deer positioned on a rocky outcrop with gnarled hollow oaks, it graced the pages of the Illustrated London News, was exhibited at the London International Exhibition of 1862, and at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867 – both of which were events that drew millions of visitors.
A ‘dazzling’ Victorian silver sculpture has gone on public display in Greater Manchester / Credit: Joe Wainwright | James Dobson (via Supplied)
The silver centrepiece was the celebrity art of its time, paraded through streets and admired by the public like no other.
Gradually over the years, some of the Earl of Stamford’s silver collection has been re-acquired for Dunham Massey, and this particular world-renowned sculpture, thought to be lost for decades and feared to have been melted down, has miraculously survived with its ‘dramatic’ central component being all that is left.
“The sculpture is not only a technical marvel, with its lifelike depiction of Bradgate Park’s rugged landscape and wildlife, but also a dramatic human story key to the history of Dunham Massey,” added Emma Campagnaro, who is the Property Curator at Dunham Massey.
Daisy Jackson -
15th June 2023 
